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Monday, September 29, 2014

Happy Happy Release Day!! Blog Tour, eARC Review & #Giveaway: After The End by Sara York

Writing is Sara York's life. The stories fight to get out, often leaving her working on four or five books at once. She can't help but write. Along with her writing addiction she has a coffee addiction. Some nights, the only reason she stops writing and goes to sleep is for the fresh brewed coffee in the morning. Sara enjoys writing twisted tales of passion, anger, and love with a good healthy dose of lust thrown in for fun.

With international flights crisscrossing the skies on an hourly basis, are we ever really safe?When a strain of the Ebola virus mutates; it spreads quickly leaving the medical community shattered. People are dropping in the streets and life, as most know it, comes to an end. Two city dweller survivors, Dean and William, are forced to flee the city and live in the wilderness—where dangers lurk behind every tree and in every valley. Not everyone alive after the end is good, and William and Dean are faced with challenges that would bring many to their knees.

ReviewMy Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

For Dystopic Lovers

Dystopic novels of the science fiction category usually hold a grain of truth, especially when talking about the pre-dystopic event. For Sara York's take on this phenomena, she chose not only a timely subject matter, but an ongoing one: Ebola. As I write this review, and while reading the book, I could not but get distracted by CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera reports on the latest calamity that is hitting the African world.

Ebola is an enigmatic virus and it is scary, it is uncontrollable and it kills. This is the whole idea behind this book and it is scary in its realness.

The story is fictional, but then again, Ebola as a mutated virus was thought of as fictional just a few months ago. In this story, we have a highly evolved and deadly virus going haywire in its mutation and just drops people where they stand. It's virulence hit a global level almost without warning and two boys, two young men, at the cusp of adulthood, suddenly find themselves together but alone in an unknown and strange world of chaos and dead bodies piling up.

Dean and William had been lovers for some years but due to their stations in life, they could not reveal their relationship, neither could they reveal their feelings for each other. William, a prince of his father's financial empire, is closeted for fears of being disinherited. Dean, a poor boy from a poor and forgotten neighborhood, strives hard to get the grades which he does with ease as he has the brain. He is closeted for fear he will be booted out of the school halls he has a scholarship in. Their fate is suddenly uncertain when they wake up and the world is in chaos and anarchy ruled the streets. As they both try to deal with survival, the young men face the terrors in the city, on the freeway and in the forest they escaped to. They also both struggle to face up to the reality that now, when all hope is lost, they can finally be together as lovers and partners.

If they survive, will their sexuality even count in this dark, new world?

Sara York has written a scary world of the 'what if.' Unfortunately, the realities of this world encroach on her fiction and raises the real-world news into even scarier levels. She does not delve into the nitty gritty medical aspects but she does focus on the struggles the people face when they finally face their Armageddon.

How do they survive within the chaos of anarchy? How could they find food when a mere touch of another may cause infection and death which means grocery is out? How could they survive without the services we take for granted i.e. government and utilities? How do they survive without the Internet? Without Twitter? Without Facebook? Without CNN? and good gracious me, no FOX???? Although these are just really petty questions both boys face, I did ask myself these questions and found I had no answers. What would I do in this modern world of convenience when all just reverts to almost medieval times?

This book made me think: with all of the worries, wars, epidemics and terrorism going on in our lives today, how would I, as a mother, wife, handle life without modern amenities? Without the ability to use money even if I had a lot or a few?

This is an absolutely terrifying story that only gained some bit of levity with the romance that surfaced strongly and surely between two young men who knew they both needed to move on in order to survive. The two boys mature in this story of dread and their relationship matures with them, making this an absolute romance too.

This was such an engrossing and fantastic read and thankfully, it ends on the right note of happiness and hope!

Love it!

Excerpt

Dean looked up at him and his heart melted. William cupped Dean’s face and leaned in, his forehead resting against Dean’s.

“Any of the stupid things I’ve ever done, any of the shit I’ve ever put you through, I’m sorry. I’ve always felt like I was never good enough for you.”